Chapter 16: A Choice to Trust
858 Words
Elara didn’t go back to the penthouse that night.
She couldn’t.
Not after what she’d seen.
Not after the silence. The look. The way Ares had let Victoria stand beside him—like she had never existed.
The scent of Victoria’s perfume had clung to that office like poison.
And Elara had inhaled all of it—every ounce of it—until her lungs burned with humiliation and heartbreak.
So she did the only thing she could do.
She disappeared.
⸻
She wandered the city for hours.
Rain drizzled lightly through the evening air, blurring headlights, soaking her hair, numbing her fingers.
She didn’t care.
She needed the sting.
She needed the ache.
Because at least that reminded her she was still alive.
It was nearly midnight when she ducked into a small café tucked away in a narrow alley in the East Village—one she’d discovered weeks ago but never entered.
Tonight, the world had narrowed to this: a chipped ceramic cup, lukewarm coffee, and silence.
She curled into the corner booth, tucking her knees up, trying not to think.
Trying not to remember his hands on her waist.
His breath against her lips.
His voice whispering, “Don’t run from me.”
But you let me go.
⸻
Her phone buzzed on the table for the tenth time.
She ignored it.
Buzz.
Buzz.
Buzz.
Another message.
Another missed call.
She turned the phone over.
She couldn’t bear to read the words.
Because it was too little.
Too late.
Because it wouldn’t say what she wanted to hear.
What she needed to hear.
Come home.
I’m sorry.
I choose you.
No.
It would say something safer.
Colder.
Strategic.
And Elara couldn’t handle another sentence that was half-truth and half-control.
⸻
Then the door slammed open.
She didn’t look up.
Didn’t need to.
She felt him before she saw him.
Like gravity shifting.
Like the air thinning.
Ares Blackwood stood in the doorway, soaked to the bone.
His white dress shirt clung to him, rain streaming off his hair and down his face.
People turned.
Stared.
Because he looked like a man who had nothing left to lose.
He walked toward her slowly—one step, then another.
And when he reached her booth, he didn’t say a word.
Just dropped to one knee in front of her like a man brought to his knees by something more powerful than pride.
By love.
⸻
“I should have told you everything,” he said softly.
Elara didn’t move.
“I should have explained about Victoria, about the board, about the Courtland holdings—”
She cut him off.
“Why didn’t you?”
Ares swallowed hard.
“I was afraid.”
“Of what?” she asked, voice cracking.
“Of losing you.”
His hand trembled slightly as he reached for hers on the table.
But he didn’t grab.
Didn’t force.
He waited.
Silent.
Vulnerable.
“I thought if I kept things controlled, if I managed every threat around you, it would be enough,” he said. “But I forgot the biggest threat was me.”
Elara stared at him, her eyes filling slowly with tears.
“You let her touch you,” she whispered.
“I didn’t want her there,” he said immediately. “I used her. I used her name, her access. But I never let her in.”
He looked up.
“You’re the only one I’ve ever let in.”
⸻
She didn’t speak for a long time.
Ares remained there—kneeling, dripping wet, looking like a king who had laid down his crown.
“I wanted you to fight for me,” she finally said.
“I’m fighting now,” he said quietly.
A pause.
“And I’ll keep fighting. As long as it takes.”
⸻
A few feet away, a waitress refilled someone’s coffee.
A door chimed with someone’s exit.
Life moved on.
But for Elara, the world had stopped.
Because for the first time since their marriage began—
Ares wasn’t standing over her.
He wasn’t commanding.
He wasn’t demanding.
He was asking.
And that—
That changed everything.
⸻
She slid her hand into his.
His fingers closed around hers instantly, like he had been waiting forever.
He stood, gently pulling her to her feet.
Their eyes locked.
Raw.
Exposed.
No armor.
No walls.
“Come home with me,” he whispered.
“Not because of the contract.
Not because you belong to me.
But because I…”
He stopped.
Breath hitched.
Then—
“Because I don’t know how to breathe without you anymore.”
⸻
Elara’s knees buckled.
She would never know what gave way first—her fear or her hope.
But she nodded.
Just once.
And it was enough.
Ares exhaled a sound she would later recognize as a sob disguised as relief.
He wrapped his coat around her, kissed her forehead like a promise, and led her into the night.
⸻
This time, she didn’t feel like a prisoner.
She didn’t feel like a pawn.
She felt like a woman who had made a choice.
Her choice.
⸻
- Writer
